Many changes have taken place in Online GIS and geospatial course offerings over the past year, since we first covered the topic on GISCafe. The range of topics has increased to include even courses for high schoolers, and the ever popular drone classes and Geodesign. The popularity of “Massive Open Online Courses” or MOOCs allows colleges and universities to teach thousands of students at one time, at their convenience, rather than at a prescribed day and time.

The exhibits at GEOINT Symposium 2015 this past week in Washington D.C. reflected the direction the government is heading with regard to new products, technologies and services.

The new government initiative of doing more with less has generated interest among a group of vendors in partnership with the Centralized Super Computer Facility (CSCF) program. Lockheed Martin, one of the vendors, has developed a Multilevel Secure ecosystem (MLS) using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+ for both single system image and for a cluster configuration. The focus of this system is to use MLS to enable data fusion and/or consolidate hardware systems rather than promote duplication.

Cities worldwide are charged with the same challenge: that of creating or retrofitting sustainable, intelligent infrastructure. Cities need the best in design, geospatial, visualization and analytical tools to realize a viable and intelligent city design. 3D City design is architectural design times thousands, plus it must have the ability to be interwoven with other surrounding infrastructure and foster an urban conversation.

Unmanned Aerial Systems is one of the disruptive technologies of this century. Whomever would have thought that small flying planes, that look very much like the hobbyist planes that people fly remotely, would someday take the role of carrier pigeons in delivering packages and also providing aerial surveillance, both on a government and citizen level.

Cindy Shepel, senior manager at EPCOR, a private utility company in the city of Edmonton, spoke about GIS infrastructure at the company at Be Inspired, London last October.

EPCOR Water Services is a private company wholly owned by the city of Edmonton. EPCOR won the “Innovation in Geospatial Networks” category at the Be Inspired Awards in October, 2013. The company builds and operates electrical transmission and distribution networks, for water and wastewater, treatment facilities and infrastructure.

Their scope of influence includes British Columbia, Alberta, Arizona and New Mexico. They serve a population of over 1 million and have over 240,00 water services connections.“About 25% of the water we produce is delivered to regional water communities that provide water to an additional 70 communities,” said Shepel.